Blog Archive

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Winter riders are at the mercy of the trail builders.

Saturday morning was absolutely stellar, and I wanted to get some hours in on the Pugs, so we loaded up and headed out to our cabin at Annie lake, where Michelle and Kona could chill out enjoying the lovely day, and I could amuse myself on the endless dog sled and skidoo trails out that way. Besides, I really wanted to see if the trail up the Watson river to Rose lake was in, for a possible multi day trip later this spring.

Loading up. The sled was full of food etc for the cabin.

Kona was pretty amped to come along, but given the number of mushers in the area, encounters with sled dogs can get messy.

Pretty awesome day for February. Trail started out very well packed, but quickly deteriorated to s-l-o-w.

Not that I'm complaining, but dog sled trails fall far down the list of good winter riding conditions. The brakes create soft grooves which tear up the snow and grab the front tire. But its a dog sled trail, so what can you expect? Beats not riding.

Finally got onto the Alligator Lake trail, which was very far up the list of good conditions. Perfect in fact.

Made it out to where the Watson trail branches off, but the trail has not been used recently, and has several inches of unpacked snow on it. I went a few hundred meters down it, but turned around. It needs some traffic to get it rideable.

Lots of this on the way back..........

And this.........

Unfortunately, a musher had come along in the interim, and I was following fresh dog sled tracks on the Carbon Hill trail, which slowed things down a tad after the mach 1 conditions on the Alligator trail.

After 5 hours out, I made it back to the cabin where the wood stove was craning, and the beer was cool.

Some friends joined us later on, which made for a very pleasant Saturday.